The Kill Call

23

DI Hitchens was waiting for Fry expectantly when she came out of the interview room. She felt faintly grubby, and depressed by what Sean Crabbe had done with his life.

‘So, Diane. Can I tell the Super we’ve got a result?’ said Hitchens with a grin.

Fry wished for all the world that she could say ‘yes’. She very much wanted Superintendent Branagh to hear that DS Fry had brought the Rawson case to a successful conclusion. And she knew that her DI wanted to give her that opportunity.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘But we’ve finally got a suspect in custody,’ protested Hitchens.

‘Yes, sir. The trouble is, I believe he’s telling the truth.’

A file would have to be prepared on Sean Crabbe for the Crown Prosecution Service before a decision was made on any charges he’d face. Fry supposed that theft would be on the list, given the confession. And perhaps perverting the course of justice, which was a CPS favourite.

Meanwhile, Becky Hurst and Luke Irvine had been doing their research, and the extent of the picture they were building up was alarming. Listening to them give their reports, DI Hitchens looked as though he might be starting to feel out of his depth.

‘It’s back to square one, then,’ he said. ‘If Sean Crabbe is telling the truth, the answer must lie in Patrick Rawson’s business activities. Someone he got the wrong side of.’

‘And there must be plenty of those.’

The DI listened carefully to the results of the visits to Hawley’s abattoir and the meat distributors.

‘So we could be talking seriously big money here,’ he said.

‘The value of the horse industry has been estimated at three and a half billion pounds,’ said DC Hurst, reading eagerly from her notebook. ‘Bookmakers alone generate an annual profit of more than a billion from horse racing. Owners of leading stallions can charge hundreds of thousands for a single mating, and a stallion can cover two hundred mares in a season. Big money, all right.’

‘Given all those vested interests, who’s going to be bothered in the least about what happens to the failures?’ said Hitchens. ‘Let the French and Belgians eat them, if they want to. Why not?’

‘It’s not just the French and Belgians any more,’ said Fry, remembering all too clearly the packing line at R amp; G Enterprises.

‘Did you know horses have the intelligence and sensitivity of a seven-year-old child?’ asked Hurst.

But Fry wasn’t impressed by that. Seven-year-old children could be obnoxious, certainly – but they didn’t usually shit on your shoes for no good reason.

‘We were told at the abattoir that they pay as much as eight hundred pounds for a large thoroughbred,’ added Cooper. ‘That’s an attractive proposition for an owner faced with the expense of disposal by some other means. It can cost anything from a hundred and fifty pounds for collection and processing by a renderer, to seven hundred and fifty or more for euthanasia by a vet. And there aren’t many animal sanctuaries for racehorses. It’s way beyond the pockets of most animal charities.’

‘And, much though they claim to love horses, the British public are far more concerned about the welfare of stray cats and dogs.’

‘Oh, yes. Try slaughtering those for meat, and see what sort of outcry you’d get.’

‘Live export of horses for slaughter isn’t actually illegal,’ said Hurst. ‘But there haven’t been any exports for several years. The government put a mandatory minimum value on any horse exported abroad. It’s intended to be an amount more than any horse slaughterer would be willing to pay. In effect, it allows the export of racehorses, but blocks the live trade in food animals.’

‘But horses of higher value must be exported for competitions and breeding.’

‘Yes. And no doubt some of them end up joining the slaughter trail somewhere else in Europe.’

‘What about horse passports?’ asked Hitchens.

‘Just a minute, I asked that,’ said Hurst. ‘Since March 2006, any horses sent to abattoirs in England must have a passport before they can be slaughtered. They contain details of any medications given to the animal, to ensure certain drugs don’t enter the human food chain. There’s a section in the passport where the owner can declare whether a horse is intended for human consumption or not.’

‘So if you don’t want your dobbin turned into horse steaks or salami, you can say so.’

‘In Section Nine of your horse passport, yes. The rules are pretty strict on identification and so on. The valuation certificate has to be issued by someone on the DEFRA list, and is only valid for a month.’

‘Are these rules working?’

‘Yes. Apparently, European Union legislation could overturn the regulations at any time. If the restriction were removed, the main market would be the horse abattoirs in southern Italy. Live animals would be on the road for days before slaughter.’

‘When you think of that, Hawleys and those UK horsemeat distributors start to look like a godsend,’ said Cooper.

‘So,’ said Hitchens. ‘What’s the outcome of all this? Are horses being stolen to be sold for meat? What do we think?’

‘We don’t actually have any evidence of that.’

‘But it must be a suspicion, given all the links in the chain.’

‘You know, Horse Watch have an entire list of stolen equines that have never turned up anywhere,’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, I do know that.’

‘Well, chances are, those animals have gone through someone like Rawson. The dealer will either sell them on to a new owner, or he’ll make a few hundred pounds on the carcass at the horse slaughterer’s. Patrick Rawson is at the centre of this somehow. He has connections with the abattoir, he’s a partner in R amp; G Enterprises. We know he has a history as a dodgy horse dealer. The number of people who might have wanted to kill him is beginning to look endless.’

‘Yes, just about every horse owner or animal lover in the country,’ said Fry. ‘But if Trading Standards couldn’t get enough solid evidence against him to put him in court after a five-year investigation, how would some animal rights group find out enough to target him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Have we traced the source of the video footage you were sent, Ben?’ asked Hitchens. ‘That would give us a line on the animal rights people.’

‘Becky has been helping me on that,’ said Cooper. ‘But at the moment, it looks as though it could have been almost anyone. The video is available on the internet, for members of the public to download and distribute.’

Hitchens shook his head. ‘The internet makes things so damn difficult. Well, we must at least have identified all the calls on Rawson’s mobile phone?’

‘Yes,’ said Fry. ‘Apart from Hawleys, and Mr Gains at R amp; G Enterprises, there were three calls to the number of Michael Clay, one to Senior Brothers at Lowbridge. And two calls each way to an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile.’

‘This was on Monday evening?’

‘Right. There were no calls logged on Tuesday morning.’

‘Do you think there could have been a woman involved?’

‘It might have been anyone – a customer, a seller… who knows?’

Hitchens looked thoughtful. ‘I’m still not clear how the operation works. How do horses end up as meat when they’re not supposed to?’

‘It’s not clear to me, either. I suppose we could mount an undercover operation.’

‘How?’

‘We send someone in as a horse owner with an animal to sell.’

‘Who could we use for that?’

‘I’d be willing to give it a go, sir,’ said Fry.

But Hitchens shook his head. ‘We have specially trained officers for undercover work, Diane. Operational Support will provide someone, if necessary.’

‘I hope they’ve got someone who can pass as an expert on livestock.’

‘I doubt it.’

They looked at each other for a moment, then they both looked at Cooper. Oh, yes. The officer everyone thought of when there was an expert needed. Fry could have kicked herself for the reaction.

But Cooper didn’t respond. And it wasn’t like him to be reluctant to jump forward and volunteer.

‘We’ll think about it,’ said Hitchens after a moment. ‘There’s no rush. Let’s check out the horse market first. See if we can pick up any useful leads.’

‘By the way,’ said Cooper, ‘this restaurant…’

‘Which restaurant?’

‘Le Chien Noir.’

‘Oh, yes. I had hopes that the head waiter would remember more about Patrick Rawson’s visit, but he’s never called me.’

‘A French restaurant, is it?’

‘In principle,’ said Fry. ‘I doubt any of the staff are actually French.’

‘Did you happen to get a copy of the menu?’

‘No. Why? Are you thinking of taking your girlfriend there?’

‘Well… we know France is one of the biggest markets for horse meat. And the guy at R amp; G Enterprises told you they were trying to introduce horse meat to the British market gradually -’

‘- through a small number of select restaurants. You think Le Chien Noir could be one of them?’

‘It might just be a coincidence. But if Patrick Rawson was known there…’

‘The manager said not.’

‘And did he seem reliable?’

‘He was very helpful,’ said Fry. Then she thought back to her conversation with Connelly. ‘Well, up to a point.’

‘Let me guess. He clammed up about Rawson?’

‘No, about the man Rawson was with. Mr Connelly said he was much too ordinary a middle-aged businessman for anybody to be expected to remember what he even looked like.’

‘That’s a good one.’

‘Yes. Yet he was so good on his impressions of Rawson.’ Fry sighed. ‘Never mind. We should find out who Le Chien Noir is actually owned by.’

‘Good idea.’

Fry looked at him. ‘You really think horse meat might be on the menu?’

‘I’ve never heard of anything like it in Edendale,’ he said. ‘But it could be presented as something else. Is the menu in French?’

Fry sighed. ‘I didn’t even look.’

When he got back to Welbeck Street, the first thing Cooper always did was check his answering machine. Nothing, of course. He thought Liz might have called, but perhaps she was waiting for him to do it. Besides, she would have called his mobile. Hardly anybody used the answering machine any more, if they had his mobile number.

The second thing he did was feed the cat. But Randy had no appetite tonight. Cooper sat with him for a while, stroking his fur until he got the familiar deep purr, willing the cat not to give up just yet.

When he straightened up, his back twinged slightly from being in the same position for too long. He got himself a beer from the fridge – some Czech brand that had been on special offer at Somerfield’s.

Last night, before he went to bed, he’d been reading a novel, a fantasy epic. It still lay on the table – closed, but with a bookmark stuck into the pages to show where he’d got up to. About a third of the way through, he judged.

But wait. It wasn’t really a bookmark at all. When he’d closed the book last night, too tired to keep the lines of text from blurring in front of his eyes, he’d picked up the first thing that came to hand. It was a habit he’d developed as a child, and had never got rid of. In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever owned a proper bookmark – not one with leather fringes and gold-blocked lettering, the sort that other people had. He just used anything that would fit between the pages.

Cooper opened the book. He saw that last night he’d used the postcard he brought back from Eyam. Plague Cottage and the memorial plaque to the Cooper boys. Like most of the other plague victims, their graves had never been found, but their names still lived on.

He drank only half the beer and put it down reluctantly, remembering that he was driving tonight. He thought about what Gavin Murfin had said about Eyam. Personally, he couldn’t see why the village should be considered creepy. In spite of the tourists, it seemed a peaceful kind of place. Perhaps that was because its memories weren’t locked away in the dark, as they were in other places. In Eyam, they were out on display, for everyone to see.

Fry had watched Ben Cooper leave the office. It had been another bad day, and Cooper always seemed to be involved somehow. Perhaps he didn’t actually intend to show up her failings. But he did it so effortlessly.

She so hated to admit that Cooper was right. That he was ever right. In retrospect, she much preferred the old Ben Cooper, the one who’d been careful not to say anything, had tried not to rub it in, even when he’d turned out to be right in the end. These days, he seemed to be proving that he knew better at every turn. The bastard.

When she got into her car to leave West Street, Fry sat for a moment in a kind of dull apathy. She didn’t really want to go home to her flat in Grosvenor Avenue. But she couldn’t think of anywhere she did want to go. It wasn’t as if there was anything to look forward to, except more bad days.

Half an hour later, Cooper drove down the track to Bridge End Farm. At one time, his nieces would have run out to meet him when they heard his car coming down the lane. Now, there was no sign of them. Busy doing their homework? Well, perhaps. More likely, they couldn’t even hear his engine above the music playing on their iPods.

He pulled up in the farm yard, and got out of the car. Then he stood for a moment, doing nothing. Just listening to the familiar sounds, and smelling the familiar smells. And he realized Claire was right – he’d stayed away from home far too long.